Matt (of WordPress) Drops by the studio and we discuss Microsoft, Open Source, Yahoo, and the future.

Well after a drinking P.B.R.’s and shots of Jim Beam for $3 last night at a dive in Philly, I set myself up with a splendid 4 hours of sleep before my flight to Vegas. I woke up feeling oh so great with the best hangover you could ask for when you’re about to spend half of your day flying. I packed lightly for this trip. A duffle bag for clothes and a laptop bag for my electronics were all I needed. I packed my clothes for the week in about 5 minutes and headed out the door.

My flight was pretty nice; I ended up with an empty seat between myself and another passenger so there was a little more room to breathe. The in flight movie was The Game Plan, starring the people’s champion, The Rock. Needless to say, it was a great idea to load my iPod up with movies and shows last night.

I managed to watch Family Guy: Blue Harvest (Star Wars spoof) and finally caught some of the show Weeds (6 episodes). Before I knew it, we were landing in Las Vegas almost 45 minutes ahead of schedule.

I caught a cab to The Orleans where my grandfather was awaiting my arrival and placing bets in a horse racing tournament. I felt pretty bad for the cab driver. He looked identical to Milton from Office space and seemed to have the same pushover attitude. He told me stories of his bingo nights with his female best friend. How he would never win but occasionally she would win and treat him to dinner. So touching…

I arrive at the hotel just after 2:30 PST and meet up with my grandfather and quickly drop my luggage in the hotel room. My grandfather throws me a white baseball cap saying “HORSE PLAYER WORLD SERIES 2008” across the front. This was to be used as my disguise for sneaking into the racing tournament so I could score free beers and food. It worked pretty well.

I got to meet a few of my grandfather’s friends at this round table in one of the three tournament halls. They were all between the ages of 45 and 75, so I felt like we would have little to talk about. One of the men even began pulling me aside to give me lectures on life. Somehow we got on the topic of music and two of these guys told me they had seen George Thorogood just the night before. Dammit! That would have been a sick show to check out.

I never really paid all to much attention to horse racing but I must admit, it’s pretty exciting. Sort of like basketball, it’s really only exciting during the end. Everyone sits, chatting quietly during the first three quarters of the mile and suddenly it seems like everyone just notices the race is on. People start yelling, pumping fists in the air and jumping on chairs. It’s kind of crazy when some of the people on chairs are elderly women smoking cigars.

So I’ve just stopped back in the room and decided to jot this stuff down as I wait for my grandfather to get ready to go out tonight. There are no particular plans, but I’m sure it will be interesting with my grandfather. He can be pretty crazy from time to time. We’ve decided to delay our departure to Florida until Monday morning, which is nice because I’ll have an extra day to hang out in Las Vegas. I just can’t wait to get lost and drunk at some bar in the middle of America.

So tonight I’m sitting here playing around on the computer and this Survivor show is on. It’s so many seasons in and the concept of the show is still ridiculous to me. I started thinking about these other “reality” shows that are vomited onto tv these days. At times a few are comical, but very few of them are close to real life. I got to thinking about the super spin cycle that VH1 has been firing through over the past few years and just started cracking up.

Let’s start from the start because that’s where most people begin to start when they initate the process to get going.

The Surreal Life
A blast from the past list of B-list celebrities are plcuked from their dormant lives to be thrown into a mansion togther. Over the few seasons of existence, we encounter such lovable faces as:

Okay, so we gathered people that were once noticed somewhere for something. Let’s make a show, right? Let’s make more seasons, right? Sadly someone said yes to both of those questions and that someone happened to be important at VH1.

So we go a few season into these celebrities competing for their popularity and the final third of their fifteen minutes of fame. Robin Leach apparently is not a theif because he would not the money from this show had he stolen anything from the Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous. He brings some class to the show while instructing these lovely celebs to compete in some lame events.

At the end of the day, popularity seems to be the winner and the prize somehow.

A few seasons in, we see a few sparks of love flying about. For a few minutes, America liked seeing Christopher Knight, of the Brady Bunch, dating a model that is many years younger. They spin off into a little series titled My Fair Brady. Luckily for these two, there was very little bull shit and they got married and no one really cares any more.

Then you have the largest joke to ever be broadcasted through a tv. Flava Flave and Brigitte Nielsen start bumping uglies (and they were ugly) during the filming of this junk show. Clearly being an odd couple, they get a spin off wonderfully titled Strange Love.

After the crazy experiment of love and comparison who has the more leather-like skin, Brigette and Flave part ways. For some reason I think she seemed to be the more sane of the two because Flava Flave looks like the he’s in competition with Keith Richards for drugs taken.

So he clearly needs to find love. What better way than to make a show out of this. Bring some classy ladies into a home and let Flave lose on them. They missed the part on classy. After two seasons of cat fights, flave getting random tail from every hood-rat in the house, girls spitting at each other and someone taking a shit on the steps, someone said Flave is done. THANK YOU!

FUCK! It’s not over! This cocky, selfish, moronic bitch decides she still wants to find love and she should have a man after Flavor Flave dissed her twice. But VH1 gives the woman nicknamed New York, another few chances with I Love New York, seasons one and two, keeping the spin cycle as well as the entertainment on dry. Her second season is just about to end, and I can’t wait to see how this ends. Hopefully it just ends.

Wow. I guess everyone has had their chance in the spotlight, had their 15 minutes. NOPE! These skanks from the original Flvor of Love series need to be seen again. Since they need some class, let’s film them going to charm school in the knock-out series Flavor of Love: Charm School. JUST END IT!!!!!

Well I guess for those of you that really enjoyed this and are still dizzy with delight, there is still one more spin off to come. The Surreal Life: Fame Game series should be popping up soon. Looks to be a best-of cast from previous seasons. I know I’ll be strapped to the couch watching this.

A side note to Hollywood… Please end this writer’s striek! These guys deserve to get paid. I have to deal with shuch shit TV anymore and all the best shows have been left incomplete. Someone throw me another beer.